Curatorial ‘Translations’: The Case of Marcel Duchamp’s Green Box

In curatorial studies, translation is a trope that is beginning to define a mode of praxis, through which the mediating role of the curator has developed into a methodology that entails principles of categorization, montage, displacement and assembly. The artist Marcel Duchamp is famous for the popularization of such techniques in the modern and contemporary art context. Furthermore, the theme of translation informs interpretations of his art in differing and unexpected ways, as well as influencing its reception by English-speaking audiences. This article negotiates the tension between artist and curator and explores the concept of curatorial translation in three exhibitions of Duchamp’s work. The Green Box (1934) – and its contentious presentation as a verbal exposition of the seminal piece, the Large Glass (1915–23) – is the key work through which this concept of translation will be examined.